, 1887-08-18
Most Horrible Accident in the
History OF RailrOading.
An Excursion Train Goes Down
with a Burning Bridge.
Over 100 People Killed and four
Times as Many Injured.

CHICAGO, August 11.--The Chicago
Times special from Forest, Illinois
says All the railway horrors
in the history OF this country
were surpassed three miles east OF
Chatsworth last night, when an ex.
cursion train on the Toledo, Peoria &
Warsaw dropped through burning
bridge and over 100 people were killed
and four times that number more OF
less wounded. The train was comp
ed of six sleeping coaches, six day and
chair coaches and three baggage cars.
1t was carrying 96O passengers, all
excursionists, and was bound for Mia
CARA Falls. The train had been made
upalong the line of the Toledo, Peoria &
Warsaw road, and the excursionists
came from various points in central
Illinois, the bulk OF them, however
coming from Peoria. Some of the
passengers came from Canton, El
Paso, Washington, and in fact all
stations along the line, some as far
west as Burlington and Keokuk. A
special and cheap rate had been
made for the excursion, and all sorts
of people took advantage of it. When
the train drew out OF Peoria at
o'clock il was loaded to its full ca
pacity. Every berth in the six sleep
ers was taken, and the day
cars carried sixty people
each. The train was so
heavy that two engines were hitched
to it, and when it passed this place it
was one and one-half hours behind
time. Chatsworth, the next station
east of here, is six miles off and the
run there was made in seven minutes,
SO the terrible momentum of these fif-
teen coaches and two heavy engines
mile minute can be understood. No
stop was made at Chatsworth, and on
the heavy train with its living freight
sped through tho darkness of the night.
Three miles east of Chatsworth
is little slough, and where
the railroad track crossed
n dry run about ten feet deep and fif-
teen wide, Over this was stretched an
ordinary wooden trestle bridge, and as
the train came laundering down on it
what was the horror of the engineer of
the head engine when he saw the
bridge was on fire; right before his
eyes leaped the bright flames and the
the next instant he was among them.
There was no chance to stop. Had
there been warning it would have
taken mile to stop that onward
rushing mass ofwood, iron and human
lives, and the train was within 100
yards of the red tongued messenger of
death before it flashed its final signals
into the engineers face, but he passed
over i'll safety, the first engine keeping
the rails. AS it went over the bridge
fell beneath and it could only have
been the terrific speed which saved
the lives OF the engineer and his fire.
man, but the next engine went down.
Instantly the deed of death was done,
car crashed into car, coaches piled one
on top of another, and in the twink
ling of an eye nearly 100 people found
instant death and so more were so
badly hurt that they can not live. AS
for the wounded they were everywhere,
only the sleeping coaches escaped,
and as the startled and half
dressed passengers came out of
them they found such scene of death
as is rarely witnessed and such work
to do it seemed as if human hands
were utterly incapable. 1t lacked
just five minutes of midnight. Down
in the ditch lay the second engine,
Engineer McClintock dead and Fire
man Applegate badly injured. On top
of each other, like a child's card
house after he had swept it down with
his hand then comes the six day coach
es. They were telescoped as cars
never were before, and three of them
were pressed in just enough space for
one. The second Car had mounted
off its trucks, crashed through the Car
ahead of it, crushing the wood work
aside like tinder and resting on
the tops of the seats, while every pas
senger in the front Car was lying either
dead or dying underneath, out of that
car but four people came out alive.
The third and fourth cars although
they did not cover eachother as COM
pletely as the second, beneath their
bottom were smeared with the blood
of their victims. The other three cars
were not SO badly crushed but they were
crushed and twisted in every conceiv-
able way, and every timber and beam
represented u crushed human frame
or Il broken bone. Instantly the air
was filled with cries OF the wounded
and the cries of those about to die. The
groans of men, the screams of women
united to make an appalling sound,
and above all could be heard the agon-
izing cries of little children. In some
instances they lay pinned along side
OF their dead parents, and there was
another terrible danger yet to be met.
The bridge and wrecked cars was still
burning. In the wreck were wounded
and unhurt men, women and children